15 U.S.C. § 8550 - U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 15. Commerce and Trade § 8550. Improvements to Cooperative Observer Program of National Weather Service

(1) providing support to--

(2) working with State weather service headquarters to increase participation in the Program and to add stations in States and regions described in paragraph (1)(B);

(3) where feasible, ensuring that data streams from stations that have been contributing data to the Program for more than 50 years are maintained and continually staffed by volunteers;

(4) prioritizing the recruitment of new volunteers for the Program;

(5) ensuring that opportunities exist for automated reporting to lessen the burden on volunteers to collect and report data by hand; and

(6) ensuring that integrated reporting is available for qualitative observations that cannot be automated, such as drought conditions, snow observations, and hazardous weather events, to ensure that volunteers in the Program can report and upload observations quickly and easily.